Settlerness—the conception, practice and production of the settler self—has been subject to several transformations in the history of Palestine/Israel. During the recent decades, new forms of representation of settlerness have emerged in this space of colonial relationships. Human rights, trauma, and displacement are acquiring new meanings in settler practices and discourses. Their appropriation by various actors of the Israeli settler formation opens to new analytical and theoretical refinements in the understanding of the existing relationships between Israelis and Palestinians.

Nicola Perugini is an anthropologist. He teaches at Al Quds BARD Honors College (Jerusalem) and is currently a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. His work focuses on colonialism, space and law in Morocco and Palestine; asylum seekers and the politics of migrations in Italy; embedded anthropology in war contexts. He is writing a book on settler deployments of human rights, trauma and displacement discourses in Palestine/Israel.